EU: Free Trade Agreements

Lord Howarth of Newport Excerpts

Monday 13th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Livingston of Parkhead]

Indeed it is. The timetable for TTIP is very aggressive, with the aim of completion by 2015, which would be almost unprecedented. I met with the US ambassador to the UK just before Christmas and we discussed TTIP at some length. Certainly, his enthusiasm for it is there, albeit that I recognise that not everyone in the American political system feels that way. However, we made that point very clearly. The Prime Minister said at the G8 conference that this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity and, understandably, I would not disagree with the Prime Minister on this issue.

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

Is the Minister confident that free trade agreements would be good for African economies? Historically, did not the US, our own country and the countries that are now successful—the industrialised countries of south-east Asia—build up their economic strength behind protectionist barriers? Is it not the case that when the countries of the advanced West pressure African countries into free trade agreements, they are doing so not for the benefit of those African economies but for themselves?

[Lord Livingston of Parkhead]

As I indicated earlier, from the free trade agreement that was recently conducted in Bali, for example, the biggest beneficiaries by far will be the developing nations. The improvement of trade facilitation will yield £100 billion in benefit, most of which will come to them. Actually, a lack of free trade, rather than the absence of it, has been the challenge for a lot of developing nations. The UK will continue to push to see free trade around the world, not just with developed countries but with developing countries.